The Green Children

A drama about community fear of the unknown

This drama is designed to stimulate critical thinking about culture, multi-culturalism, assimilation, religion, and racism, but it is also useful for considering how communities respond in a crisis or when something strange and unusual happens to disrupt day to day life. It uses an old tale about two green children who turn up unexpectedly and mysteriously. The children have different religious practices, beliefs, language, and even tastes in food, all of which make the people in the town fearful of them. The drama opens up possibilities to discuss these sometimes-complex issues from a "safe distance". This safety is created through the use of the greenness metaphor.

This unit of work was originally created by Professor Julie Dunn (Griffith University, Australia) and Professor John O’Toole (University of Melbourne) as one of the ten drama exemplars in their e-book Pretending to Learn: Teaching Drama in the Primary and Middle Years. John and Julie have kindly modified this unit for inclusion in this resource.